Gorignak

Lincoln in Laramie

At the "Summit" rest stop on I-80 just east of Laramie:

Shoe report

I picked a good week to wear worn-out shoes!

Last week I wore some older shoes for the Rocky Mountain NP trail runs, and that pretty much did them in. Or so I thought. Lots of trail running eventually creates holes in my Salomon XA Comps. I figured I could get one or two orienteering runs out of them before I ditched them and started over.

Well, after Monday I have determined that orienteering will trash them MUCH more than any trail running ever could. As long as they aren't causing problems (beyond sticks getting stuck in them occasionally), I going to run them into the ground.

A new pair vs. my current orienteering shoes:

(photo taken after the daily "pick the rocks and twigs and grasses out" session)

Laramie Daze - midweek update

Orienteering isn't generally all that exciting to write about. We both have had some good moments, some confused moments, and some embarrassing moments of running the wrong way in front of a crowd of people. Luckily it's all for training (so far!). This morning was a fun "One-man relay" where everyone did 4 loops of about 1.5 km each, in different orders, criss-crossing paths and finding 16 points in the woods.

We met up with Boris from the US orienteering team again - John first met him at the 5 Jours de France several years ago, he stayed with us a couple nights and came to watch the Tour de France on L'Alpe d'Huez with us, and then we caught up with each other at the Jukola in Finland in 2006. It's fun meeting fellow orienteers (albeit at different level of abilities) all around the world.

The other fun activity recently was clambering around on some interesting rocks:

This weekend is the US championships, where we will attempt to finish 10 km on Saturday and 15 km (!) on Sunday in under 3 hours. John is fast enough if he is reasonably accurate, hopefully I will have enough accuracy and speed in my legs to finish, especially on Sunday. We shall see - in any case, I'm sure we'll learn something!

Upcoming schedule

One of our friends recently asked where we are going this month, next month, the rest of the year. In case anyone else is also curious, here is what is currently on our plate:

Laramie Daze orienteering - August 4-10
Denver to chill and recover and taper - August 11-15
Pikes Peak Ascent and Marathon - August 16,17
Driving back to Texas, staying in Frankston for a couple days - August 18-22
Volunteering at the Too Cool No Sweat race - August 23-24
In Austin ever-so-briefly - August 24-26
Flying to Geneva - August 26-27
GTA race across the Alps - August 31 to September 13
Driving around Europe for some random sightseeing - Sept 14-25
Flying back to Austin and collecting Howie out of storage - Sept 25
GUR race in Austin - Oct 5
Assisting Kip at the Pain in the Pines race in Tyler - Oct 25
GUR race in Las Vegas - Nov 8
Bandera trail races, Big Chill adventure race - January 2009
Mogollon Rim 24-hour rogaine - May 2009
(updated 8/11/08)

We plan to be in the Austin area this fall/winter/spring - that's as far as I think I know at this point. We're working up ideas for next summer, perhaps driving east to visit friends and family and to seek out some puffins...

RMNP - photos

Photo upload is working again (must have been all that skilled troubleshooting that got it to suddenly behave...)

So without further ado, here are the promised photos.

Deer or something, at the Boulder Field on the way up to Longs Peak:

We made it up Longs Peak! Just in time for a bit of snow and dark clouds:

View of Longs Peak after the clouds departed and I was much lower down:

King of the Mountain:

Bighorn sheep "hiding" among the rocks on the Twin Sisters:

View down the Twin Sisters trail back to the west:

The very-pretty Alluvial Fan waterfalls:

See that big rock and how it could come down at any minute?

John and Danny on the hike up the Alluvial Fan waterway:

View of Emerald Lake from the Flattop Mountain Trail:

Alberta Falls:

The area surrounding Black Lake:

Andrews Glacier (later that same day John witnessed some people sliding down it from above, including one woman who apparently slid into the rocks and hurt herself somewhat):

View down from Andrews Glacier:

Our Tumbleweeds campground at Curt Gowdy SP in Wyoming :)

Another quick update

Hi!

Well, I'm trying to upload some photos from Rocky Mountain National Park, but I keep getting an "internal error". Troubleshooting has been unsuccessful, so I'll have to try again another day.

Summary of last week:

We ran every day, hiked up many trails, passed beaucoup other hikers and tourists (wow, that's a lot of people out enjoying the outdoors!), and saw some beautiful scenery.

We started off with an ascent of Longs Peak (14,259 ft) without really knowing what we were getting into. Also without any commitment as far as getting to the top. Both were probably good things. John helped me up the technical parts and I amazed myself by making it up some "interesting" challenges. Even more so by getting back down. John had already summited once when he came back to find me, and the second time he got to the top there was another hiker who had seen him go up twice. The comment was "I'm going to kick you in the head!" I sure wish I could get away with funny exclamations like that!

The next day we did repeats across the way on the Twin Sisters trail. That was a mistake, because there were a bunch of hikers that saw us a bunch of times, and by the third repeat I got really tired of trying to explain what craziness we were doing. One woman threatened to call John's mother. Ah well, it was great training otherwise.

We finally got smart and headed over to the main part of the park, around Bear Lake. Danny came to visit on Wednesday and he and John explored waterfalls and lakes. I headed up Flattop Mountain and to the top of Hallett Peak. Very cool. Over the next couple days we saw almost every mountain lake and waterfall, from Black Lake to Emerald Lake, around to Bierstadt, over Granite Pass, up Estes Cone, and a side trip to Spruce Lake. If you can cover a lot of distance in one day, you can generally avoid seeing the same people more than once and having to explain yourself.

Although John did run into the "kick you in the head" hiker from our day up on Longs Peak. He was wearing a shirt that said "You haven't really lived until you've nearly died - Longs Peak." Too funny!

I think we got some good GTA training in - I sure hope so, at least, I cannot imagine what else we could be doing...

We are in Laramie WY this week for some "Laramie Daze" orienteering. Monday-Friday they are holding training events, then this weekend is the US Championships. We ran around "the plains" for the first time today - lots of open area, rolling terrain, sage and shrubs to slow you down, and interesting challenges. Hopefully I'll get used to it by this weekend. Having fun so far!

Internet access is limited this week, but we'll check in when we can. Hope everyone else is staying cool and having a fun summer too!